The world is on the brink of war again. War crimes and massacres, genocides are coming to characterise our modern world. Humanity is in the deepest crisis it has ever seen.
German critic Walter Benjamin, who died in 1940, once said: “There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” These words predicted the scale of atrocity during the Nazi invasion of Europe.
Benjamin believed that barbarism was being transmitted from one hand to another. Almost a century before him, American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson raised a very similar concern about the trajectory of civilisation, remarking, “The course of civilisation is an endless train of felonies” and it seems this train is still on the move.
The 20th century was full of genocides and crimes against humanity. Colonial atrocities, genocides and mass massacres, along with two world wars, seemed to establish a legacy of crime for the 21st century.
Steve Crawshaw’s recent book, Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, is an urgent call for justice. As an award-winning journalist and historian, his book is a document of crises in the struggle against war crimes.
Reports, court documents and registers are seamlessly woven into his acute sense of justice and hope. This results from his experiences and what he witnessed over two decades on the front lines of justice through his work at Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Freedom from Torture.
His commitment to justice is clearly seen in his covering “stories of human rights abuses in the hope of making change”. These observations from the field add to his judgments throughout the book.
The book provides us with a broad perspective on the battle against injustice, registering the failures and successes over a century.
For Crawshaw, impunity for war crimes is no longer a given. Now, he says, “the slogan ‘Send him to The Hague!’ is heard worldwide from those who believe powerful leaders should be held accountable”.
The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) indictments of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorse this hope of bringing the powerful to justice.
The struggle for justice is not always fulfilled. As he notes, “We have seen genocide convictions in international and domestic courts for everything from Rwanda and Bosnia to the rape and killings of thousands of Yazidis in Iraq and Syria by Islamic State.”
World history abounds with silences about war crimes. It took former European colonial powers Germany, Britain and France the best part of a century to admit their crimes against humanity in Africa.
There are many killings still shrouded in silence in the Middle East, which are seldom discussed in these terms. However, governments and state leaders always react to genocide or massacre convictions.
Most of the discussions around justice, law and crime in the book are based on Polish lawyer and staunch advocate of human rights Raphael Lemkin’s arguments. His ideas seem to shape the writer’s understanding of justice
Lemkin was the one who defined the term “genocide” as “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves”.
For instance, he says, “Lemkin would describe Moscow’s treatment of Ukraine as ‘perhaps the classic example of Soviet genocide … the destruction of the Ukrainian nation’”.
In the fight against war crimes, the Nuremberg trials are cited as a driving force to bring justice to criminals. Crawshaw maintains: “Nuremberg helped create a new language around human rights and would become a shorthand for those seeking accountability in conflict zones around the world.”
Lemkin, who was an advisor to the Nuremberg court, is quoted as saying, ‘The Allies decided their case against a past Hitler but refused to envisage future Hitlers. They did not want to, or could not, establish a rule of international law that would prevent and punish future crimes of the same type”
Nuremberg was seen as “the re-establishment of law in Nuremberg and the rebirth of humanity to which we all belong”.
Later, the establishment of the Yugoslavian and Rwandan tribunals was significant. These two war crimes courts which “prosecuted genocide meant the practical significance of Lemkin’s legacy could be seen for the first time”.
Prosecuting war crimes should become more common for peace and the future of humanity. The establishment of the ICC is considered as the continuation and universalising of the Nuremberg Trials.
Some African governments’ acknowledgments of the ICC are cited in the book as exemplary: “There were productive collaborations between African governments and The Hague. The court’s first investigation came in response to a request from the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the context of the conflict in eastern Congo in which millions had died.”
Another outstanding move mentioned in the book is the Senegalese government and the African Union jointly creating the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Courts of Senegal, which prosecuted crimes committed in Chad under Hissène Habré’s rule.
South Africa’s bid to bring justice to Gaza is also cited as a remarkable move.
What Prosecuting the Powerful shows is that all challenges against warlords and crimes against humanity come from individual moves, citing exemplary figures such as ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan.
Despite all obstacles, justice will prevail!
Prosecuting the powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, is published by The Bridge Street Press.
